Are You Afraid of the Dark: The Tale of the Lonely Ghost

Three episodes in, and already it’s clear that Are You Afraid of the Dark succeeds in all the ways Goosebumps fails. While there are still moments of humor that would be inappropriate in a horror story aimed at an older audience, these serve mainly to prevent the episodes from being too scary for small children. There is some bad child acting, but it isn’t all horrible. Above all, though, these are actually all stories written to scare children, rather than gimmicks written to draw in an audience out of sheer curiosity.

The Tale of the Lonely Ghost is a legitimately heart-wrenching story that, with very little reworking, could be turned into a script for adults. It’s a story about age, loss, and the horrors of intolerance. Little about the story is explained, but little needs to be.

The intro has less substance than the previous two episodes. David (Nathaniel Moreau) gives Kristen (Rachel Blanchard) a birthday present, showing he has a crush on her. At the end, she opens it and sees it’s a necklace like the one in the story. It works for what it is.

Amanda (Laura Bertram) is sent to life with her Aunt Dottie and cousin Beth (Pauline Little and Laura Levine) while her scientist parents are away doing…science. The framing aspect makes the generic use of “scientist” here work much more effectively than in The Werewolf of Fever Swamp. This is a story passed from a friend-of-a-friend, the exact field of science the parents studied would hardly be a detail worth remembering.

Dottie is a real-estate agent trying to sell an old house next door. A mute girl died in the house many years ago when she attempted to travel to her grandmother’s home, and was chased back inside by a crowd of bullies. Since this incident most locals believe that the house is haunted. In an effort to humiliate Amanda, Beth tells her that all members of her social circle must be initiated by spending a night in the house.

Beth is a spoiled, repulsive person. She’s a stereotype, but I’ve certainly met people like her. She’s constantly fighting with her mother about the continued presence of her Nanny (Sheena Larkin), who continues to stay with them simply because she has nowhere else to go. Beth seems to somehow see this as Nanny’s fault, and loudly proclaims that Amanda is not to touch her. The old woman’s pain is shown through a performance with just the right mix of subtlety and impact to make sure that the kiddies get it.

Inside Amanda finds “Help Me” written backwards on the wall, and sees the mute girl in the mirror (Jennie Levesque). As with previous episodes, this is a script written to be scary with a low budget. We get a picture of a girl in a yellowed night-gown, with creepy lighting, and we’re scared.

The next day, when Amanda tells her Aunt what happens, Dottie sends both of the girls over to clean all the writing off the walls. Beth is, naturally, being obnoxious. The two find that the Help Me’s have multiplied, and there’s a collection of dolls behind the mirror that Beth, in her selfishness, is drawn to. She finds herself trapped inside the mirror, and the girl emerges.

The ending is touching, even without making a lick of sense. The girl shows Amanda a locket revealing that Nanny is her mother, and Amanda runs to stop her from leaving the home just as she’s boarding a car. Drawing Nanny back to the house, she reunites with her daughter and travels with her into the mirror. Beth then reappears in the closet. Failing to realizes that she’s no longer in the mirror, Beth is humiliated in front of her friends by Amanda, who becomes the new leader of the social group.

And no, I don’t have the slightest clue why the ghost was in the mirror. The episode never even tries to explain it, and is better for it. Would an explanation have really made the story more interesting?

One touch that most kids likely missed: how did Nanny go from living in such a large house, to working as a domestic service for a real estate agent? The answer isn’t spelled out, but it’s clear that the loss of her daughter left her in no fit state to maintain her wealth. Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but it makes sense, and certainly adds some bite to her humiliation by Beth.

This is probably the best of the first three episodes. I’m curious how much better it can get than this, but I’m still hopeful. So far, this show is awesome, and I’m dying for more.